The present invention relates generally to devices for handling material and more specifically to mobile devices for handling material.
After the introduction of the mobile device for handling material shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,326,571, such devices have experienced success in operation and achieved a significant degree of customer satisfaction. However, even such excellent devices have experienced some limitations due to the inability to pivot the turntable along an axis generally perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the device in addition to the ability to pivot the turntable along an axis generally parallel to the longitudinal axis of the device.
Although apparatus existed allowing pivoting along an axis which is parallel to the longitudinal direction of the device and along an axis which is perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the device, such apparatus had severe limitations. For example, such apparatus had a very limited degree of tilt, with the degree of tilt being negligible and insufficient for its use in mobile devices for handling materials of the type as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,326,571. Further, such apparatus were often of the "stacking" type and thus were not of a compact design and thus suffered from many disadvantages including excessively adding to the height of the device, raising the center of gravity, and like disadvantages. Further, such apparatus were not adaptable to devices of the type of U.S. Pat. No. 4,326,571 where the operator was supported on the turntable with the material handling members, which had the ability to rotate within the width of the machine, and which obtained the other advantages as set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 4,326,571.